He Ruined My Life (#Wattys2015)

Chapter VIII

"Well, I'll see you." Chase said, standing in front of my house door. "Facebook me tonight, tell me if you are alright. Okay?"

I nodded. "Okay then, I'll go." He said. He turned and strolled down the steps, rounding the corner. He gave me one last glance. He nodded. I opened the door and went in.

"Oh, sweetie, I was so worried about you when the rain started, but I was in the middle of work and dad was teaching a club, I'm sorry I couldn't pick you up. How did you get back dry?"

"Well, it's a long story,...let's just say I ran into a friend of mine and he let me wash up in his house."

"Well, I'll thank that friend." She said, hugging me. "Where's your bag?"

Oh no. I left it in the classroom. I didn't go back to get it. Oh well, at least it's going to be dry.

"Um, it's still in my classroom. So it's dry."

"That's actually good, now that I think of it. How much homework were you supposed have, sweetie?"

"Um, just one math worksheet. And the essay's due tomorrow. I can just print that out and I'm positive I can get the worksheet done with in break."

"Okay, that's very good. Alysse, you can do whatever you want now. Or, actually, an alternative, can you help with dinner?" My mom smushed her lips into a pout. She looked so cute, I only rolled my eyes and smiled at her. "Sure. But I need to know what you want to make for dinner."

"Well, I'm trying to make chicken enchiladas with guacamole and tortilla chips..."

"Okay, then Mexican food? I'll get the guacamole done with, and in the meantime, you can mix the batter for the tortillas, and after that stuff, you grill the tortillas and I'll slice up the chicken and grill it. You pick the stuff that goes into the enchiladas, then we arrange it, okay?"

My mom nodded. "Great."

I scooped out the insides of three avacados. I took one slice of tomato, three garlic cloves, two teaspoons of cilantro, then put it all in a mixer. I added a small glop of sour cream. I mixed it well. I took a small bit on my finger and licked it. Perfect. I took one lump of chicken and sliced it into twelve slices, three for each person. I drizzled a little olive oil in the pan and jumped back as it sizzled a little. I added a pinch of cinnamon, a pinch of pepper, and a little bit of practically every spice in the cupboard. The olive oil was now well flavored, and I dumped the chicken in. I got "sprayed" by the oil, but I didn't mind about it. After I was sure the chicken was firm and had a thin coating of the oily spice mix hardening around it, I flipped the pan off the stove and turned the stove off. My mom was just picking the tortillas off. I flipped three pieces of chicken onto the largest one and did the same with the three other largest ones. I drizzle a little of the spiced up oil onto the chicken.

"Wow. Alysse, you are an amazing cook!" My mom says. "I have no idea what you put in that oil, but it smells amazing!"

Mom asked me to make a little bit of tomato sauce. I did. I put some diced tomatoes and a few random spices into the cleaned mixer. I brought the sauce to my mom, who spooned out two spoons for each of the enchiladas which were already stuffed with greens and cheese. She left the rest and added water to it. She diced more tomatoes and dumped them in. She minced up some meat and asked me to put whatever I put into the chicken into the meat. Then, she put it into the watery tomato thing. She put cilantro in next. She chopped up onions and put them in. Oh, I should have known a Mexican dinner would not feel right without homemade salsa. I took a picture of the finished meal, them took a selfie with my mom and the food. We set it out on the table. Kent came in.

"Wow, Alysse, you helped with dinner?" He asked. I nodded. "Not bad, sis. I can't cook at all without burning the house down. Seriously, in this cooking activity in school, I did almost literally burn down the building."

He surveyed the meal. "Looks and smells good."

We called dad and began dinner. The guacamole was great. It was creamy and had a strong flavor. The salsa looked like an epic fail, but once you ignore that it's unbearably ugly, it's actually quite tasty. I was right to use lots of spices for the enchiladas, since now it had a slightly spicy flavor and spiced up the nice tortillas mom made. I guess you could call the meal beginners luck for me. No guarantee I won't bring the fire department to our house next time.

As soon as I finished, I excused myself from the table and logged onto Facebook. I sent a long message to Chase.

"Hi, I just really wanted to thank you for saving my skin (literally) back there. I'm okay. My parents are cool about it. I was helping my mom with dinner just then, and I just found out that I'm a great cook. Yay for me. I'll send pictures of the stuff mom and I made. But yeah. Really, thank you so much for saving my skin back there. I really won't forget it, and I know I owe you bigtime. See you."

I sent the two pictures and his response was quick.

"Hey Alysse, thanks for the thank you note. You're totally welcome. And the dinner looks great, by the way. You will make an amazing cook. I'm glad you are okay. (By the way, I tricked the computer into thinking "Alysse" and "Alyssandra" were not things worthy of autocorrect! Yay!)"

"That's great Chase. :-) I'll see ya. My mom wants me to help with something else right now."

"Alright. See you, Alyssandra Erins."

"Okay, your use of my full name is really freaking me out."

":-)"

"(￣^￣) Young man, I'm looking at you like this."

"Nice face."

"Okay, seriously, I need to go. My mom is yelling."

"Kay. Bye."

"Bye."

"Bye."

"What is it with us and bye? I really need to go. Bye." I got up from my chair and rushed downstairs.